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Ok feed gurus...What should I feed? Update...

Hi All,
I got a new boy who has only been a pasture puff. He is in good health and weight BUT he has rubbed his mane ALL out and has rough areas under his belly and armpits and between hind legs. He is a white gray horse. I suspect that he has insect allergies. I was told that it was noseeums (in Florida) that got in his mane and tail which cause him to rub them out. He has been properly wormed and all shots. I normally feed Ultium but I found it tends to make my horses hot and spooky though I think its a great feed. Any suggestions on GOOD feed for horses with skin issues? Since I only have one horse I am not worried about the cost of feed so I am looking for top quietly.
T.I.A.

I recommend the Blue Seal Sentinel line. Which specific formula would depend on the horse's other nutritional needs. I just rehabbed a TB who had the worst case of rain rot I'd ever seen. He also needed some weight and foot rehab. I had him on the Performance LS, and his new coat grew in sleek and shiny in record time (albeit with the help of topical treatment). We had an old neglect case a few years ago. Her hair would fall out in patches, revealing dry, flaky skin beneath. We put her on the BSS senior formula and her skin improved and her hair stayed put.

Flax seed and MSM are often recommended for horses with skin issues. So if you wanted to go the supplement route to try to help your horse out, I would start there.

Grain wise, TC Senior is awesome for medium to hard keepers. TC 30 (a ration balancer) is good for air ferns.

There are a lot of different things that "could" help skin issues, but I would want to talk to a vet and get a recommendation from him or her.
I don't often recommend Platinum Performance, but it has great ingredients in it and I could see it helping a horse with skin issues. There are plenty of threads on PP.

I recommend the Blue Seal Sentinel line. Which specific formula would depend on the horse's other nutritional needs. I just rehabbed a TB who had the worst case of rain rot I'd ever seen. He also needed some weight and foot rehab. I had him on the Performance LS, and his new coat grew in sleek and shiny in record time (albeit with the help of topical treatment). We had an old neglect case a few years ago. Her hair would fall out in patches, revealing dry, flaky skin beneath. We put her on the BSS senior formula and her skin improved and her hair stayed put.

Thanks Guys! My vet is coming out this week and we will address the skin issue. I can see that it was gnats or noseeums because his paddock was on a canel and I am hopeing since I am no where near water that issue will go away.

ok if you had to change feeds what would you go to Ultium or one of the Seminole Wellness feeds? I like Ultium but did find my mare I had on it was very hot and spooky. My new guy who I am totally smitten with is 6 Arab stallion who is only halter broke he will be starting to be worked and broke in the very near future....lol But I want a high quality feed and I have access to both feeds easy enough. Any thoughts?
T.I.A

ok if you had to change feeds what would you go to Ultium or one of the Seminole Wellness feeds?
T.I.A

If you put me in a corner and held a knife to my throat and said I HAD to feed one or the other (LOL) I would go with the Seminole because I am very strongly anti-Purina.

Seriously, though, the Seminole appears to be a half decent feed. Good ingredients. Low starch. OK fat content if you go with the performance formula. Good fat:fiber ratio. No major red flags on the site. I have no personal experience with it but it beats Ultium into the ground, no contest.

The only concern I have is that it wants you to feed between .25 and 1lb per 100lbs of body weight for a 'maintenance horse'. That's a pretty wide range. For the average horse you'd be feeding either 2.5lb per day or 10lb per day. That's a pretty big discrepancy.

Last edited by harnessphoto; Mar. 10, 2013 at 02:22 PM.
Reason: after looking at the label

Harnessphoto
But you bring a great point about the feed ratio......I hadn't' thought of that.

I could go into a whole slew of things that are wrong with Purina in general and Ultium specifically. I tend to avoid it because people get very up in arms. Let me just say that the fact that they make you use their calculator instead of just giving you label instructions on the website is a big red flag. When my horse was in prime endurance condition, doing 20 miles of riding per day, I had to feed him 8lb of BSS to keep him fat and shiny. If I were to feed the Purina equivalent, according to their calculator, he'd need THIRTY SIX POUNDS OF GRAIN. Meanwhile, their label says not to feed more than five pounds per feeding. So I'd have to feed seven times a day! Can you imagine? And that's just the tip of the ice berg.

So yes. I'd go with the SW instead. You'll just have to experiment with the rations and see what works for your horse.

Actually the general opinion on Ultium is pretty good. It's on the lower end of NSC and some horses do very well on it. Usually I am anti-Purina as well but I wouldn't hesitate to feed Ultium if I had a horse I thought would benefit from that kind of performance formula. Ive checked out the ingredients and they are pretty good. Nothing like their omolene line (yuck!).

I don't know much about Seminole wellness line but I think people in here tend to like it.

When I get a new horse, I tend to NOT believe the horse has been wormed properly.

With all the itches your new boy has, check out the long long thread on neck thread worms here on COTH.

To me, your post says neck threadworms. Instead of a fancy feed, try equimax double the dose (for his weight) for 2 weeks, and do it again in 2 weeks, then do it again in 2 weeks.

Yes, Ultium is all they say and more (and all you Ultium fans don't get so happy about thinking that was a praising statement for it). That feed sure made me take a look at what my horse was eating. And totally due to Ultium, I found out she was sure had issues with soy. Now I know not to ever feed her soy. Ever. Never. I am not impressed with Ultium. Ultium didn't make my horse hot, made her very spooky, mareish, insecure, itchy, bloated, gassy, constantly showing heat. Yes, the whiz bang food of Ultium made me take a very close look. Thanks Ultium. Now she eats hay, tim pellets, and a non-soy supplement. How easy and less expensive is that! Ultium is the "straw that broke the camels back" of bagged feeds.

If you look at the Purina site and delve into their labels, you'll see warning about possible side effects of feeding their grains. The side effects include what you listed AND things like fever, hives, etc. I don't know about you, but my horses don't get fever and sweats from their grain.

I do think Ultium is the best of a bad situation and I have known horses who do well on it. If you ONLY have Purina available, Ultium is probably the best choice for a lot of horses. I'm very much about whatever works for your horse and I don't knock people for feeding Purina. I just wouldn't feed it to my horses.